Service Blueprint Diagram Description [+ 5 Resources]

Service blueprint diagrams help you easily plan, explain to employees and stakeholders, troubleshoot, upgrade, and sell services to customers.

According to the latest World Bank report , companies that create and sell services contribute significantly to global GDP, accounting for 65.70%.

If you are in this highly promising and promising services industry and are looking for tools to streamline your business services, you have come to the right place.

Creating, managing, and improving services is a difficult task. To ease the process, G. Lynn Shostack proposed the service blueprinting methodology in 1984 in the Harvard Business Review titled “ Designing Services That Deliver .” Since then, large and smart service companies have leveraged this tool to help them understand, improve, and deliver their services.

But how do you create one? It’s easy to read the article till the end and try out the tips and tricks suggested throughout.

introduction

As the name suggests, a service blueprint is a flowchart or wireframe diagram that shows all the steps involved in providing a service to a consumer or business client. This works like an SOP in the service industry.

In other words, you can think of a service blueprint as a detailed version of a customer journey map. You must already be using customer journey maps. Visualize all customer and business interactions throughout the client lifecycle.

Expand the same flowchart under your customer journey map to create relationships between these consumer interactions and other business properties such as processes, people, tools, physical evidence, and digital evidence.

A service blueprint project breaks down the delivery of a product or service into several logical components. Then use lines and arrows to connect the points between these logical components.

This process divides each layer into swimming lanes or dashed lanes. Finally, the entire diagram looks like a wireframe, such as those seen during a website or mobile app development project.

What is planned?

Every standardized service blueprint should plan for:

• Step-by-step lifecycle of customer journey in business
• Customers interact one at a time in each frontstage channel
• Backstage processes and channels that support frontstage channels

Now let’s understand why we need to create a service blueprint.

need

You should create a service blueprint primarily for the following reasons:

#1.Service design

Every industry employs professional service designers to create service blueprints. Companies use this flowchart to train internal employees.

Such a visual design ensures that the front end and back end work together and follow appropriate quality guidelines.

#2.Improvement of service

Applying a service blueprint makes it easy to apply data analysis techniques to information collected from several customer touchpoints in accordance with universal service SOPs.

You can then make some changes to your blueprint and run A/B tests to find revamped service paths.

#3.Service troubleshooting

If your customer service team receives too many complaints about a particular service delivery across your store, website, or other touchpoints, you need to find the offending element.

If you have a service blueprint, you can test each step in the flowchart to see which steps are malfunctioning. Once identified, you can manipulate the steps to solve your customer’s pain points.

For example, let’s say you’re getting too many reports on social media that your customer service team isn’t following customers. However, customer service team managers report that their representatives regularly follow up with them.

So where is the problem? you might ask!

If you look at the diagram in the service blueprint, you can see that the reps are using old emails for the customer group for follow-up emails. that’s it! You can now work with your database team to update your customers’ emails so that your customer service agents can send emails to their current email address.

#4.Service discovery

You can review existing service blueprints and explore potential new services.

For example, customers have complained on social media about the lack of extended warranty options. Returning to the service blueprint for e-commerce purchases, you will see that the website does not offer extended warranties to new users.

This option will only be promoted to customers who have previously purchased your product. Simply upgrade your purchasing process to proactively offer extended warranties.

#5.Training new service personnel

Multinational companies and global retail chains use service blueprints to train new employees in specific service or product departments.

Additionally, review the important components of the service blueprint diagram.

component

A service blueprint consists of various design elements and text boxes that outline various service actions. These are:

Main components

#1.Physical evidence

This swim lane, or line of action, shows how customers interact with your business through props such as your website, store, or order documents.

#2.Customer behavior

This swim lane is primarily a customer journey map. It should outline all the steps the customer needs to take before receiving the service.

#3.Contact action on stage

Business clients and consumers see these actions. For example, a traveler purchasing a bus ticket from a physical counter would be the on-stage or front-line contact. Another example is human-machine interactions such as at ATMs and vending machines.

#4.Contact action backstage

These interactions and tasks are invisible to consumers. Typically, backend teams, machines, and modern servers perform these tasks so that frontline agents can serve customers.

For example, counting money inside an ATM or packing an online order at a fulfillment center are behind-the-scenes activities.

#5.Support process

These are labor forces and interactions that always remain hidden. However, these actions and employees are critical to the survival of the business. Examples of supporting process actions include business data analysis, gateway payment processing, and e-commerce order risk analysis.

major lines

#1. Line of sight

In a service process, not all actions are visible to the customer. Line of Visibility shows which actions are and are not visible to the client.

Visible actions must be placed above the visible line. On the other hand, all invisible tasks stay below the visible line.

#2.Borders without visibility or internal interaction

This line primarily separates employees who have direct contact with customers from those who do not. You can use a dashed line between two swim lanes to indicate this line.

# 3.Line of interaction

This is the front-line touchpoint where consumers interact directly with company representatives.

secondary component

#1.Completion time

You can mention estimated completion times or ETAs to help employees complete tasks on your service blueprint according to a pre-assigned schedule.

#2.Business rules

Outline business policies to ensure that onstage and backstage contact actions do not exceed certain thresholds as sales reps seek to enhance customer service.

#3.Business indicators

Collect and compare time, revenue, discounts, and more from all processes to measure whether your services are performing optimally.

notation

#1.Annotation

You can annotate flowcharts with sticky notes, sketches, legends, explanations, and more.

#2.Arrow

A single arrow signifies a simple movement of a process from one step to another. Conversely, a double-headed arrow means that both steps must match each other before the process can proceed.

Now let’s review a use case for the service blueprint concept.

Usage example

#1. Corner shoe shine service blueprint

G. Lynn Shostack used this example to propose an early theory of service blueprints. This is also the cleanest and simplest form of service flowchart for a corner shoe shine business. Contains only two sections. These are:

• What actions are customers seeing?
• Required actions invisible to customers

The blueprint also includes an estimated time for each step so that the cobbler can complete the process in 2 to 5 minutes.

#2.Hotel service blueprint

This wireframe clearly describes the customer journey map from the time a traveler arrives at the hotel to the time they put their luggage in their room or tip the bell attendant.

Physical evidence outlines several physical and digital props (e.g., outdoor parking, luggage carts, elevators, etc.) that customers pass through when arriving and staying at a hotel.

Other blueprint components include customer actions, onstage contact actions, backstage contact actions, and support processes.

#3. Online purchasing service blueprint

This example shows a customer journey map for an e-commerce website and the associated steps to provide frontline and backend services.

There are essentially five action lines, which correspond to physical evidence, customer actions, on-stage contact actions, and so on.

Flowcharts use arrows and lines to show dependencies or relationships between actions.

resource

Milo

If you want to promote your services using online platforms, you should use this template from Miro . It shows a customer journey map where a customer buys ready-mix food from a website, takes an order at home, cooks it, posts the dish, gets a discount, and buys it again.

However, you can customize service blueprint components such as physical evidence, customer actions, frontstage interactions, backstage interactions, and support processes based on your business needs. This template is available through Miro’s free and paid subscriptions.

mural

Do you want to provide best-in-class service to your customers and business clients? Do you want to find service issues before they cost your business revenue? And most importantly, do it all through team collaboration. Are you thinking of doing so?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, then don’t wait any longer, sign in to Mural and get this amazing Service Blueprint template for free.

This template is suitable for large or small commercial service plans. Unlike other templates, it doesn’t spoon feed you content. You will be asked questions at each step to help you create a functional service blueprint from this generic template.

whiteboard.io

This Service Blueprint Whiteboards.io template covers the customer journey from your e-commerce website to purchasing your product. Other behind-the-scenes and front-line customer touchpoints are now covered in this flowchart.

Also available in physical stores. All you need to do is customize the service blueprint component with the appropriate content. Diagrams can be shared and edited from your trial account. However, if you purchase a paid plan, you will enjoy professional benefits.

lucid spark

This Lucidchart Service Blueprint format is a blank template suitable for most service-related businesses. However, you can go to the Lucidspark web app’s documentation page and access its template library to find service blueprint diagrams that include Swimlanes.

The second provides detailed guidance on how to customize templates in Lucidspark. However, if you already have experience creating service blueprints, you can use the first template.

Edlow Mind

If you are facing a competitive market to promote and sell your services or products, you may want to revamp your services. EdrawMind helps you in your quest by providing free downloadable Service Blueprint templates.

In the link above for the EdrawMind template library, you can find ready-to-use formats for your next business case.

• Restaurant Service Blueprint: Drinks and Appetizers
• Hotel services blueprint
• Banking Services Blueprint
• Hospital Services Blueprint

last word

Service-facing businesses generate the most revenue worldwide. Considering the United States, Statista reports that the service industry added $14.76 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022. The report also states that the above figure is equivalent to 76.89% of US GDP in 2022.

This business has trillions of dollars of market share, and it’s easy to start a business for services, so you could make a lot of money if you stay in this business. However, you should always check your service offering using modern operations management tools. Otherwise, your business may fall into a downward trend.

One such tool is the service blueprint diagram, and if you’ve read this far, you’ve mastered it. Don’t wait too long, use any of the tools above and the service blueprint diagram that’s right for your business to better understand your services, improvise, and delight your clients.

Then check out the best website annotation tools.